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Microsoft Replaces Your Pirated Windows, For Free

Posted by samzenpus on from the confession-is-good-for-the-soul dept.

th3d0ct0r writes "ZDNet reports that Microsoft is now willing to replace your pirated version of Windows XP. As part of the recently started "Windows Genuine advantage" program, Alex Hilton explains that this incentive aims to bring out customers who bought PC's with Windows XP preinstalled from vendors that pirated the Microsoft OS. Not only do they offer amnesty to anyone coming forth with a pirated version, but also to ship an original version of their product with a valid license to replace the pirated one, each customer being able to get up to 5 such replacements. Hilton says: "Our goal is not to prosecute the individual, our goal is to get to the source".

17 of 574 comments (clear)

  1. Important to note by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is only a pilot program for the UK, and it requires a proof of purchase (so they have someone to go after).

    1. Re:Important to note by Vulcann · · Score: 2, Informative

      This is only a pilot program for the UK, and it requires a proof of purchase

      Let me get this straight. Which "pirate" in his right mind is going to sell pirated software to anyone and leave a paper trail long enough to implicate him in the form of a bill ?
      Another point, as soon as all the piracy shops hear about this, the few dumb ones who did pirate the copies with a bill will simply stop issuing bills for the copies thus preventing anything tracing back to them.
      A third point, Windows might be a large chunk of pirateable software but it's far from being the ONLY piece of it. There are millions of other software titles worthy of pirating. These guys can afford to keep low until MS abandons this program. And abandon it they will because the only way to sustain this is to keep dishing out Windows free, which of course MS cannot possibly do.

    2. Re:Important to note by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1, Informative
      Or alternatively, pretend to the customer to sell a computer "without Windows", but Windows just happens to be installed on its hard drive, left over from "testing". If the customer keeps using this windows (rather than installing a proper OS over it), it's officially his business, not the vendor's. And the invoice obviously only shows hardware, no OS. So, there's no easy way for a third party (MS) to find out whether the computer was sold with a pirate version of Windows on it, or whether the customer installed it after the sale himself, in order to claim the goody.

      Back in the old days, computer's were often sold "without DOS", with the full understanding that DOS was still installed on the hard disk; the only thing missing would be the boxed install disks and manuals. Even nowadays, OS-less laptops often come with Windows installed, complete with special manufacturer OEM customization menu still active ;-)

    3. Re:Important to note by Curate · · Score: 5, Informative
      Win2k Pro is stable, and with SP4, relatively secure.
      As is XP.

      Win2k Pro DOES NOT have integrated DRM, and no "activation".
      How are these even an issue, unless you are a pirate?

      Win2k Pro uses less system resources
      If XP uses more resources, then it's only marginally so. And that's pretty normal; not many OSes use fewer resources as new versions are released.

      , does everything XP does better than XP does.
      It's the exact opposite. XP's feature set is a superset of W2K Pro's. One difference you mentioned already is hyperthreading. That *is* a big deal if you have a hyperthreading CPU; you want to make full use of your hardware, don't you?

      Another difference is support for dual monitors. Other posters will note that they have gotten dual monitors to work with W2K. Well, you can do it with certain video cards (mostly dual-head cards), but it is up to the video card driver writer to add support for it. However, in Windows XP, you can simply use any arbitrary combination of video cards; the work of creating the virtual desktop is done in the OS itself.

      Fast user switching. A built-in firewall. Sound card emulation in NTVDM (try playing Doom on W2K, then try it on XP); better compatibility with DOS apps in general. A skinnable/themeable GUI (don't like the default? go back to the W2K look and feel). ClearType. Improved power management. Device driver rollback. Network bridging. Faster boot time.

      And then there are lots of little improvements here and there, such as new command line options for various commands.

      Really, it's pretty sad if you think W2K is better than XP in any way, shape, or form. Maybe you were just trolling. Otherwise feel free to continue to use W2K in blissful ignorance.

    4. Re:Important to note by Rorschach1 · · Score: 2, Informative

      They've done something like this in the past, even if they didn't advertise it. I was working in a small computer shop several years ago, and one of our regular customers, a local dentist with a small office network, came in to get Windows 95 installed on his 5 machines.

      Being an honest guy, he'd actually purchased 5 copies at the local computer show. Unfortunately, they were counterfeit copies - a fact that probably wasn't obvious to someone who didn't see the real thing every day.

      Anyway, we called Microsoft's anti-piracy hotline and provided all the information we had about the vendor. I know they sent the guy at least one legitimate copy for his trouble.

      I sympathize with people like that, who thought they were getting a legitimate deal. Not so much so for the guy who came in with some CDs he'd picked up in Hong Kong, each with some $50,000 in assorted titles, and wanted help installing the programs.

  2. Re:How do you know? by shadowsurfr1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    If it came pre-installed, there should be a sticker somewhere in your documents with the computer or on the computer case itself. Mine's from Dell and it's on the computer case.

  3. Editing whine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Plural's don't have apostrophe's, even when they are abbreviation's like "PC's".

  4. Re:Okay? by kfg · · Score: 3, Informative

    Can someone please explain to me WHY they would do this?

    Oh sure, that's easy enough. OEMs are selling boxes preloaded with pirate versions of Windows. Microsoft would like to set the dogs on them, but it would be prohibitively expensive to track them all down, assuming they could do so at all.

    By getting the customers themselves to identify them they find out who they are at no actual cost (since these wouldn't be paying customers anyway, and the cost of goods to MS is zilch).

    It's pretty straight forward.

    KFG

  5. Re:Suspicious... by caino59 · · Score: 2, Informative

    dude, think about it, they wont sue the end-user...they'll sue the person that built the end-users pc and sold them the pirated OS

    sheesh, thought that was clear as day.

  6. Re:How do you know? by jasoneyre · · Score: 3, Informative

    Click About... Is this copy of Windows Legal? in the My Computer window.

    And stuff... :)

    Cheerz, Jason.

    --
    THSsMCHshrtrTHN160chrs -- And I don't even like to SMS!
  7. Re:How do you know? by Radi-0-head · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/YourPC.mspx

    That's how you know.

  8. Re:How do you know? by mottie · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you are running Windows XP SP1/SP2 or Windows Server 2003, the Windows Validation Assistant can scan your product key to help you determine whether your computer's operating system is genuine

    http://www.microsoft.com/resources/howtotell/ww/wi ndows/default.mspx

  9. Re:It's things like this... by mvdw · · Score: 2, Informative
    Why bother with Norton Ghost for a home user, when you can get exactly the same effect with a knoppix cd, a network connection and judicious use of the "dd" command.
    # mkdir /mnt/server
    # mount server:/remote/dir /mnt/server
    # dd if=/dev/hda | gzip >
    /mnt/server/winimage.img.gz
    (wait a while...)
    # reboot

    Some tips:

    • Make sure the freshly installed winXP is a blank disk by dd'ing it with zeros before install. This way you get great compression.
    • If you burn the image to disc, make sure if you use split that you re-constitute the image on a network disc before trying to recover it.

    To recover:

    # mkdir /mnt/server
    # mount server:/remote/dir /mnt/server
    # gzip -d -c /mnt/server/*.img.gz | dd of=/dev/hda
    # reboot

    Or something like that, anyway...

    One of these days I'm going to make a distro that does it all automagically (yes, yes, I know g4l exists, but there's some license issues there, apparently...)

  10. Re:No OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's the case if you buy from someone like Dell, but if you buy your computer from your local "beige box assembler", there is no Microsoft tax at all. They just buy the components and assemble the PC, there is no Microsoft tax at all.

    It is these people that Microsoft is going after. They are constantly trying to compete with Dell, and undercut each other's prices, so they will often put unlicensed software on the PCs they sell.

  11. Re:Okay? by slimak · · Score: 2, Informative
    Easy? Yes. Easier than anyone else? No.

    The software update capability is OS X is pretty damn impressive. It shows a list of what software has updates, lets me choose which to install and handles everything else for me. The only action I may have to take is accept a EULA, but this only happened the first time I updated some apps.

    The windows update is pretty good, but I don't really care for the "automatically download and install" option. Also, why do many updates take SO long to install? Not a huge issue, but annoying. In addition some updates (i.e. SP2) are so large that they are difficult to work with. For example, my wife's computer is an older laptop with ~700 MB of free space -- I cannot use windows update to install SP2 even though the update is smaller than 700 MB. This is very annoying.

    Until recently I used Mandrake and found the bundled package updater hit-and-miss. At first it worked great, but after a while I started to get errors/messages about package signatures. After a while I just gave up and didn't bother (mostly due to my powerbook arriving).

    From my experience, I would rank them
    OS X (easiest)
    Win XP
    Mandrake (hardest)

  12. Re:Why is Microsoft so stupid? by richwmn · · Score: 2, Informative

    For the small shop building custom machines it is next to impossible to get MS products at a competitive price. In order to put a legit copy on a machine you must go to a local retailer and put a full retail copy on. OEM copies/prices are not usually available.

  13. Re:Their generosity is incredible by mr_z_beeblebrox · · Score: 2, Informative

    First off, what the hell is intellectual property property? Is that like PIN number? Secondly, IP doesn't have a cost? No cost to develop? No cost in man hours? No cost to protect?

    No, the pin for your ATM is a genuine thing, it is like the key to your house. The software you develop has a development cost. The license that you sell may or may not have had one. Developers no longer sell their developed product. So I spend 5 million dollars developing my widget and no matter how many people pay me 200$ a shot I still am THE SOLE owner of my widget. That is intellectual property. That is the concept that is without cost, not the product.